Grants Management System

The vendor is required to provide grants management system provides staff a flexible and robust system that tracks complex workflows across multiple grant programs - which is imperative for the diverse programs of authority. 
- The grants management system supports highly customized program design for each authority program.
- The overview of program and application creation and design pre-release phase includes creating and promoting the grant opportunity. 
- This is an internal process completed by grant program staff and occurs at the beginning of each and every grant cycle. 
- During this phase, staff customize the program details: program name or title, set the time zone, choose to display or hide cycle dates in the applicant portal, set the default language, and add a program specific description and guidelines. staff can upload unique, program specific logos which are displayed in the applicant portal.
- Grants management lifecycle
• Application, 
• Review (both internal and external reviewers), 
• Award, 
• Post-award reporting – grantees,
• Post-award payment processing – agency staff, 
• Close out and auditing
1. Application:
• The online application portal allows grant applicants to submit electronic grant application requests to the existing database for review and management. staff work within the grants management system during the program and application creation and design pre-release phase to build application and reporting forms which are published to the online applicant portal to be completed and submitted by external grant applicants.
• The portal provides one centralized login and account for applicants to manage all of their grant applications across authority various grant programs and allows users to collaborate and share in-progress applications and reports with colleagues.
• Applicants must use a unique application link generated by the grants management system as part of the grant program creation process in order to begin a new grant application.
• The system does not allow applicants to view all open funding opportunities and apply within the portal after login.
• Applicants can view and sort their grant applications by status displayed (as published) in the grant application portal.
• The current grant applicant portal supports single and multi-stage applications, eligibility quizzes, letter of intent, applications, corporate organization documents, and progress and final reports.
• Applicants may apply for multiple grants among authority programs which are tracked within the grants management system.  
• The online application portal is mobile-responsive, features screen reader accessibility, autosave for in progress applications, provides basic electronic signature, and has undergone third-party testing against web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 aa standard.
2. Review:
• Authority staff conduct a threshold review of applications for eligibility and completeness before requests are assigned to internal and external reviewers.  
• IF more substantial changes are needed to the original application, staff can request that applicants make revisions to their submitted application by publishing the application back to the applicant portal for resubmission.
• Additional information or documentation is collected by staff outside of the current grants management system and then uploaded by staff to the associated request record.
• Once an application is considered complete, staff perform database duplicate check to ensure data integrity. 
• Database duplicate check connects the application to organization and contact records within the database. 
• The system will automatically attempt to pair the application with the correct organization and contact records based on historic information within the database, but options are available to create new records or to search for an existing organization or contact record to pair with the application.
• Grant programs use internal application review processes where reviewers can, generate email or letter correspondence, reassign reviewers, complete feedback and review forms and view review records
• Staff access and manage preferences for the portal, update reviewer permissions, and make announcements. staff work within the grants management system during the program and application creation and design pre-release phase to build reviewer feedback forms and ranking sheets.
• After the external scores are entered, staff pull the scores from the grants management system and have a separate microsoft excel spreadsheet that is used and revised throughout several grant review meetings to show the ranking of projects and the funding cutoff so that a final recommendation can be reached.
3. Award:
• Following the review process, grantees are notified of their grant award and the pending request record is approved by agency staff by changing the grant disposition status within the grants management system.
• The current grants management system provides three grant dispositions: pending, approved, and declined.
• Program administrators and project monitors indicate the grant approval amounts, set the terms of performance, update the grant status, and schedule payments (staff can also schedule payments after the approval step).
• Authority staff send notification emails to both successful and unsuccessful applicants through the existing grants management system
• The project summary sheet requirement form is built using the same dynamic form builder used to create the original grant application form and is published to the grant applicant’s online grant applicant account for completion.
• A grant agreement template is drafted and approved by program staff and department office for each grant program cycle. 
• This template is uploaded to the grants management system’s document template manager. 
• Once the template is available, agency fiscal managers generate the grant agreements either individually or by using batch actions on selected request records. 
• The system generates grant agreements (as .doc files) using mail merge fields to pull specific fields from the request record into the grant agreement.
4. Post-award reporting - grantees:
• Grants management system allows grantees to submit electronic project status reports using the online grants portal system.
• Once submitted these forms automatically populate requirement record fields within the database that are related to organizational records, contact records, review records, payment records, and request records.
• The system provides staff the ability to track and report on applicants, projects, and properties across grant programs and funding years.  
5. Post-award payment processing
• The current grants management system provides flexible payment scheduling and tracking functionality that accommodates a variety of scenarios that can be customized for each of agency and agency grant programs.
• All programs support two different payment scenarios: scheduled payments and contingent payments.
• Programs that use scheduled payments provide grantees with three or more disbursements over a specific timeline based on milestones, reporting deadlines, or a fixed calendar schedule.
• Grant programs allow grantees to request payments as part of their progress reports and final reports.
• Report forms support attachments and uploads for supporting documentation, project deliverables, certification of expense forms, financial documentation, etc. program administrators and project monitors assess reports for accuracy and completeness prior to approving payment requests within the grants management system.
• Approval by the program administrators initiates an automated workflow within the system that notifies fiscal grant managers to proceed with disbursing payments to the respective grantees.
• The payment request approval, all subsequent payment processing steps occur outside of the grants management system.
• Program administrators and project monitors assess reports for accuracy and completeness prior to approving payment requests within the grants management system. 
• Approval by the program administrators initiates an automated workflow that notifies fiscal grant managers within the system to proceed with disbursing payments to the respective grantees.
• The payment request approval, all subsequent payment processing steps occur outside of the grants management system.
• The grants management system tracks spending, or payment requests, against the awarded amount and prior approved payments to accurately display the current grant balance. 
• The payment record lists amounts paid to date, total of unscheduled payments, number of payments requested, and the date of the payment request submission. 
• Payment records are managed with options to copy, delete, cancel, re-issue, and void payments as well as the ability to create payments in batch for selected grant records.
6. Close out and auditing:
• Grantees to submit electronic final reports on project completion status using the online grants portal system.
• Once final payments are processed, fiscal grant managers change the grant status to, “closed” and send a final email communication to the grantee primary project contact acknowledging that the grant is complete and all project deliverables are met.
• Agency financial spot check policy requires that 5% of the awarded grants within each program are selected randomly for a financial spot check. 
• Agency financial spot check process requires grantees to submit complete financial documentation as defined by agency financial policy. 
• Grantees are notified at their “project end date” if they were selected for financial spot check. final reports are due 30-45 days from the “project end date”. 
• The final payment is withheld until all financial documentation is received and deemed satisfactory.
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: August 11, 2025